About Me

By day, I write biometrics and identification proposals for MorphoTrak (a subsidiary of Morpho, a subsidiary of Safran). By night, I manage the Empoprises blogging empire, as well as various virtual properties in Starfleet Commander and other games. Formerly known as Ontario Emperor (Ontario California, not Ontario Canada). LCMS Lutheran. Former member of Radio Shack Battery Club. Motorola Yellow Badge recipient. Top 10% of LinkedIn users.

Monday, November 21, 2011

There's a reason why I'm posting this in my business blog rather than my music blog. But first, let me tell you what I'm posting about.

The song "Friday" by Rebecca Black.

I've never written a full-fledged post about the song, either here or in my music blog (although this post linked to a Google+ discussion of the song), but most everyone knows the story. In case you don't - young girl and her parents contract with some El-Lay people to create a song and video to show off the girl's talents. The El-Lay people come up with a song late one night, and the lyrics are (to put it mildly) not all that good, even for pop music. The song is then recorded, but the girl's voice is smothered in auto-tune and stuff by the El-Lay people. The video shoot looked like it was kind of fun. The video was posted on YouTube, and then it went viral.

Why? Because, according to the ears of (literally) millions, the song was REALLY BAD.

The girl got a lot of attention that she really didn't want to get, and is now trying to restart her career, but not with the El-Lay people that she worked with previously.

Meanwhile, the song has garnered a reputation on a standing with other failures, such as "Heaven's Gate" and the Los Angeles Clippers - things that cause a negative reaction when you hear about them (or, in the case of the song "Friday," hear it).

The advertisers, thinking that the song was catchy, added this comment to the posting of the video:

You'll be singing this song every day until Black Friday. Guaranteed.

I guess the people at the advertising agency thought they had picked a winner. This was a song that everyone was talking about! And it includes the word "Friday" prominently in the song! And our sale will take place on Friday!

What could go wrong?

Apparently the advertisers didn't consider WHY the song was so famous. And I'm sure that some advertiser is looking at the YouTube votes and wondering, "Hey, why does our video have 646 likes and 1,191 dislikes?"

Now I didn't influence that voting - since YouTube permanently disabled my account, I can't vote.

But unless you're marketing to specific audiences, you want your customers to feel good about what you're advertising. Based upon the numerous negative reactions on YouTube and on other places such as Google! and Gizmodo, people aren't feeling good about Kohl's right now.

Note to Kohl's - you want people to LIKE your Black Friday commercials

There's a reason why I'm posting this in my business blog rather than my music blog. But first, let me tell you what I'm posting about.

The song "Friday" by Rebecca Black.

I've never written a full-fledged post about the song, either here or in my music blog (although this post linked to a Google+ discussion of the song), but most everyone knows the story. In case you don't - young girl and her parents contract with some El-Lay people to create a song and video to show off the girl's talents. The El-Lay people come up with a song late one night, and the lyrics are (to put it mildly) not all that good, even for pop music. The song is then recorded, but the girl's voice is smothered in auto-tune and stuff by the El-Lay people. The video shoot looked like it was kind of fun. The video was posted on YouTube, and then it went viral.

Why? Because, according to the ears of (literally) millions, the song was REALLY BAD.

The girl got a lot of attention that she really didn't want to get, and is now trying to restart her career, but not with the El-Lay people that she worked with previously.

Meanwhile, the song has garnered a reputation on a standing with other failures, such as "Heaven's Gate" and the Los Angeles Clippers - things that cause a negative reaction when you hear about them (or, in the case of the song "Friday," hear it).

The advertisers, thinking that the song was catchy, added this comment to the posting of the video:

You'll be singing this song every day until Black Friday. Guaranteed.

I guess the people at the advertising agency thought they had picked a winner. This was a song that everyone was talking about! And it includes the word "Friday" prominently in the song! And our sale will take place on Friday!

What could go wrong?

Apparently the advertisers didn't consider WHY the song was so famous. And I'm sure that some advertiser is looking at the YouTube votes and wondering, "Hey, why does our video have 646 likes and 1,191 dislikes?"

Now I didn't influence that voting - since YouTube permanently disabled my account, I can't vote.

But unless you're marketing to specific audiences, you want your customers to feel good about what you're advertising. Based upon the numerous negative reactions on YouTube and on other places such as Google! and Gizmodo, people aren't feeling good about Kohl's right now.